What are the boy equivalents of Little House on the Prairie/Anne of Green Gables/Malory Towers/Judy Blume>

[BellaBearisWideAwake]

You know, the books where you end up reminiscing about one night with friends and everyone has read them.

(I appreciate I am generalising heavily about boy and girl books, apologies. Just had a bit of a sad moment when I realised that having no girls I am less likely to pass these stories on to my children)

Ah, now they may be sexist, bloodthirsty and borderline racist (if not out and out - not read any for years), but Underwater Adventure is the reason that I know what to do if I get my foot caught in a giant clam shell.

Invaluable.

oh yes, i remember the whaling one... i have memories of them cutting out chunks of whale flesh so they could stand on the whale???? that had been harpooned??

Deinately swallows and amazons, narnia, Just William, Hardy Boys, Roald Dhal but little house on the prairie and anne of green gables still ok. There are loads of Enid Blyton books - The faraway tree, ,Secret seven, famous 5 to name but a few. And Dick King Smith had loads of really good books (saddlebottom is the one that got made into babe), Charlotte's web.

don't be sad about not reading the other ones to them (the mallory towers are a bit pap imo, not sure I will be reading them or St Clare's to my girls)

Summerbird - I think that Judy Blume book was "Then again, maybe I won't". There was also the Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing/SuperFudge ones with a male narrator but think they were for slightly younger children. I loved all her books.

Great thread -I'd been thinking about ways of keeping DS intersted in books as he gets older and there's lots of inspiration on here.

DH said his favourites were
Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series
Any Dr Who Books (he's still buying those now)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory/Glass Elevator
Narnia, LOTR, and Enid Blyton's The Barney Mysteries Collection
Hardy Boys were ok too

Perhaps not classics as such but all 3 of mine suggested Eagle of the Ninth and The Desperate Journey.

The Flashman novels are absolutely brilliant, but some of the language used is decidedly misogynistic, racist or both (in character as the narrator, to be fair).

Ds is nearly 7 & likes Roald Dahl, Kipling, G. Durrell, & the more adventuresome Enid Blytons. He's also a Harry Potter fanatic (I know they're more recent, but I have a teacher-training student who grew up on them - eek, I feel old!). He's not so keen on C S Lewis.

yes definitely Rosemary Sutcliff! & Leon Garfield. Jack London - White Fang, Call of the Wild.

Oh & another fantastic one for historically-minded teenagers is Mary Renault - The King Must Die, The Alexander Trilogy.

ooh ooh I loved the Willard Price Adventure series and remember the clam shell incident very well. Unfortunately I also have had no call (as yet) to release my or anyone elses trotter from a giant shell, but rest assured I'm ready for when it inevitably happens.

just out of interest, how do you get your foot out of a ginat clam shell?

Well, thisis, it was a very long time ago that I last read it but I think it was a holding your breath for ages/having a big knife tied to leg with a dirty rag/manly prising apart of the shell/and/or stabbing the clam in a weak spot scenario type thingy. I think.

You need to jam your knife into the side of the shell which would sever the nerve that makes it close.

If you don't have a knife then you're fooked.

The Coral Island by RM Ballantyne

My brother and I used to love The Hardy Boys and the Hitchcock's Jupiter Jones /3 investigators series.

Ooh I had forgotten about Gerald Durrell!

if you see headlines about a woman arrested in the seafood aisle of sainsburys for brandishing a knife and rag... that'll be me

These are wonderful thank you all!

Loving the clam shell advice.

Lots of books on here that I've read and loved but akso loads I've never even heard of.

The Dark is Rising trilogy by Susan Cooper and The Owl service by Alan Garner - both brilliant.

Also Diana Wynne Jones - the Chrestomanci series for younger readers especially. Do watch out as she wrote a couple for adults which have been reprinted in the same sparkly covers - it freaked me out recently to suddenly encounter lots of sex in the middle of a typical DWJ plot!

Hardy Boys/Three Investigators are the equivalent of Nancy Drew etc.

I loved Willard Price - very ahead of his time, speaking out against game hunting (and hunters often being characters to be tricked and laughed at) and capturing animals in order to conserve and breed them. OK, they also regarded circuses as contributing to the conservation effort. And they try hard to be respectful of all the native people they work with, which was quite the novelty to me at the time, even if they look rather clunky and patronising now. The bits about the Australian prison system were fascinating too!

The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren

OMG How could I have forgotten Alan Garner and Susan Cooper?

Elidor is a fantastic read.

I loved Pippi longstocking so anything by astrid lindgren sounds good

DS's favourite book so far is the Indian in the Cupboard.

Is that Lynne Reid Banks? I adore her adult books

The Brothers Lionheart is quite sad, be warned.

Can anyone help me remember this book - it was a bit like The Indian in the Cupboard, about a boy whose fantasy world comes to life. The thing that comes to life is a 3D scene cut out of the back of a cereal box, and I remember him having to eat loads of this cereal 'which tasted like doormats' to put together all Thr bits of Thr scene to complete the adventure. Please put me out of my misery and tell me what the book was...